


i'd be home with you

by anderfels



Series: Overwatch Ficlets [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Happy Ending AU, Home, Homecoming, M/M, Massage, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Old Married Couple, Post-Canon, Sleepiness, Sleepy Cuddles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-28
Updated: 2017-11-28
Packaged: 2019-02-08 04:59:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12857253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anderfels/pseuds/anderfels
Summary: The heat of the engine keeps the backs of his legs from numbing to the cold, but he still rocks on the balls of his feet, fast losing sensation in his toes despite fur-lined boots.They’re notrealtoes, he notes. There’s no flesh left; it’s hardly fair they can still get so cold he can’t feel them.





	i'd be home with you

**Author's Note:**

> a birthday ficlet for the wonderful chey, who's not just a really lovely friend, but also my biggest inspiration who comes up with 99% of my ideas, including this one, which i just throw words at and hope for the best
> 
> set in our lil AU, where jesse and genji are happily retired and nothing bad ever happens
> 
> happy birthday peach!

 

 It’s 2:17am. The truck idles beneath the white halo of a streetlight, to keep the heat on, engine a low rumble.

 

 Genji hunches his shoulders, tucks his nose behind his scarf, and breathes to feel the warmth on his skin, picking a loose thread inside his coat pocket. His gloves are missing their fingers. By design; he never did like sacrificing dexterity for warmth.

 

 The heat of the engine keeps the backs of his legs from numbing to the cold, but he still rocks on the balls of his feet, fast losing sensation in his toes despite fur-lined boots.

 

 They’re not _real_ toes, he notes. There’s no flesh left; it’s hardly fair they can still get so cold he can’t feel them.

 

 The night hangs around him, the liminal space between midnight and first light, where time seems intangible and life disconnected. There’s no heartbeat here at night; it is as the world has paused, ceased to turn until dawn, when the sun will thaw the land, and set it in motion again.

 

 It is too cold even to rain.

 

 Genji watches the patches of sky, the clouds a denser blue than the indigo behind, blown by an unfelt wind. Perhaps it’ll snow tonight. Just as well the weather changes now, and not before the trawler arrived home. Safely.

 

 He can see it anchored. It has been for a half hour or so. The harbour fills the stretch of sea down the bank from the truck, lights fragmented across the water surface, a rainbow of coloured shards amidst the black water. Smaller boats are moored to the south, painted with the colours of the reflected harbour lights, and to the north are the larger vessels, the seiners and trawlers in hulking silhouette, outriggers and booms like skeletal body parts against the sky.

 

 A quiet hum surrounds the newly moored trawler, workers talking, disembarking. There’s been a steady stream of people since Genji arrived, some he vaguely recognised from previous times, all obviously exhausted, hurrying into the still cold.

 

 It’s another several minutes before he sees him. Recognises him when he’s halfway down the weir, the stubborn kink of his hair out from beneath his hat, glowing white as he walks beneath the lights, the broad shoulders, the way he carries himself, and Genji’s glad that’s no longer embarrassing in the slightest, that he can recognise Jesse from how he _moves_.

 

 He snatches at the door behind him and yanks the keys from the ignition, letting it slam as he pushes away from the truck, willing his knees to wake up as he steps carefully down the grass bank surrounding the small lot where he parked, hands hovering by his sides for balance. His boots crunch in the ground frost, and then Genji’s running as soon as there’s pavement beneath his feet, doesn’t care what anyone watching might think, doesn’t care that his hips will despise him for it tomorrow, doesn’t care if he ends up slipping and falling on his face.

 

 It’s scarred enough already, what more could one scrape do?

 

 Jesse. _Jesse_.

 

 At fifty feet, Jesse waves at him. Genji’s scarf falls from his face, beanie threatening to slide its way off his head with how fast he’s running. His smile is brighter than the lights lining the weir, and at twenty feet Jesse stops walking, and braces for impact, smiling in return.

 

 Genji collides with him, and still somehow manages to remain graceful, catching Jesse around his neck and leaping into a full-body hug, holding on as tight as he can. He’s caught effortlessly in one of Jesse’s arms before the other joins too, slipping easily around his waist and spinning them once, like something from a film, Jesse’s laughter buried somewhere in Genji’s coat.

 

 His hair is salt dry and unwashed except for the sea spray, curling against Genji’s face as he closes his eyes, freezing air burning his lungs as he catches his breath.

 

 The small gasp of Jesse’s name is lost in the hug, Genji cradling the back of his head with one hand, and holding on when Jesse carefully sets him back on his feet, pulling him down to his height. Genji frames his face with both hands, and looks at him for the first time in a week,  thumbs gently stroking his cheekbones. The most beautiful face he’s ever seen.

 

 “Hi,” Jesse says, soft and tired, grinning so wide it makes Genji’s heart squeeze.

 

“Hi,” he answers, and has to flex his fingers against Jesse’s cheeks, bite his bottom lip to keep from crying.

 

 Jesse just smiles at him, as if he’s trying to fill every sense with Genji’s face, every inch of scar tissue, every discoloured patch of skin, every seam between prosthetic and real and rebuilt. A face he _adores_ , and had missed more than anything. “God but I missed you,” he mumbles, and dips, meeting Genji’s lips in a gentle, halting kiss.

 

 Genji rolls with it, shifts into Jesse with his whole body, wraps both arms around his neck again, and can’t help the tiny noise of satisfaction he makes. He tilts his head, and Jesse’s at once kissing him deeper, only pulling back an inch when Genji starts to laugh, huffing through his nose.

 

“You stink,” Genji says by way of explanation, still laughing, and kisses him again, gently scritching at Jesse’s beard with his flesh fingertips. “Like fish and damp. And _this_ -” He tugs a tuft of the hair at his jawline, threaded with silver now amidst the brown. Jesse squeaks. “Prickly.”

 

 “Thought you liked the rugged masculine look,” Jesse says, still beaming at him as he stands up, looking around for the duffel bag he’d dropped to catch Genji. Genji picks it up and shoulders it for him, despite it nearly weighing as much as he does.

 

“That is not ‘soft mountain-man slash lumberjack’,” He stands on tiptoes, leaning over to press a kiss to Jesse’s overgrown jaw. “That is roadkill.”

 

 Jesse’s bark of laughter seems much too loud in the stillness of the harbour, and Genji can’t help but smile. It was only a week, but any day without him is like a canvas washed of its paint, like the world has been stripped of colour and vibrancy and life.

 

 Genji shifts the bag on his shoulder, and takes a second to just stare, looking Jesse over from woolly hat to heavy boots. They’ve known each other over thirty years, and still Genji sometimes just gets lost in Jesse. Even a week without him is too long. Too dull, too colourless. And Genji is glad that’s no longer embarrassing either. He isn’t shy any more. Jesse is his heart. His sun and moon.

 

 Jesse is watching him when Genji realises he’s been staring, open adoration amidst the freezing flush on his face, the cold-bitten nose and cheeks. He looks away by reflex, smiling into the bunched wool of his scarf, before Jesse is against his chest, stooping down to kiss him again, gentle thumb on Genji’s chin.

 

 “We’re going to freeze to death,” Genji says softly, against Jesse’s lips. He flicks his eyes up. There’s more silver in Jesse’s hairline than he last remembers.

 

“Guess we’d better get home then, huh.” Jesse kisses him, tiny, barely moving. His lips are chapped, and his moustache is overgrown, rough and prickling, unwelcome in their kiss. Genji can’t find it in him to care much. About the scraggly beard or about freezing to death. His home is wherever Jesse is. They could camp out on the weir if Jesse wanted to.

 

 Genji hums as he returns the kiss, standing on tiptoes against Jesse’s chest, shivering as Jesse breathes through his nose, and huffs hot air on Genji’s cheek. Only when he’s satisfied that yes, they probably are going to freeze to death if they don’t move, does he pull back, slotting Jesse’s fingers between his, and starting the walk back to the truck.

 

 The drive isn’t long, and so much less empty than the drive to the harbour, despite neither of them saying more than a few words. Jesse leans into Genji’s side, tucked up against him on the bench seat, the wool of his hat tickling Genji’s face. Scarce street lights streak orange and white across his face, the motion of the truck so different to the swell and sway of the boat, so much more comforting.

 

 He’s dozing by the time Genji pulls down the lane to the cottage. The sea is a torn strip against the sky beyond their hillside, blacker than the horizon, only broken by the reflection of the moon. Dawn won’t be for several hours yet, and the night is colourless around their home, still and silent.

 

 “Jesse,” Genji whispers, nuzzling his nose into Jesse’s hat, head heavy on his shoulder. He switches off the engine, and the change in background noise seems to rouse Jesse, picking up his head, eyes blinking in the sudden light as Genji opens the driver side door. “We’re home.”

 

 He carries Jesse’s bag inside, smiling at the sign above their front door, as he always does. Jesse had carved it himself, and Genji had painted it. _Mr & Mr McCree _.

 

 Home. Their home. And for the first time in days, it feels like it, as soon as Jesse crosses the threshold. Jesse is home, and their modest cabin brims with light and life once more.

 

 Genji switches on the hall lights, the landing, and kitchen, orange and comforting after the night outside, Jesse padding in behind him and hanging up his coat and scarf by the door. Habit. His hair is chaos when he pulls off his hat, and Genji can’t help but giggle at him as he locks the truck from the front door, .

 

“Yours ain’t much better,” Jesse says fondly, nodding at Genji’s own stubbornly messy hat hair. He toes off his boots and sighs, sagging with relief, wiggling wool-socked toes against the floor. Genji’s still smiling at him when he looks up, like he hasn’t seen him in years, let alone a week.

 

“Go and warm up,” he says, squeezing Jesse’s wrist as he moves by him. “I’ll bring up some cocoa.”

 

 It sounds like the best prospect he’s had in days, so Jesse does as he’s told and heaves himself upstairs, feeling his energy sapped with every step. A hot shower sounds heavenly.

 

 The shower is switched off twenty minutes later, and Jesse pads into the bedroom in his thermal underwear, stifling a yawn in the towel he’s holding, weakly pulling at his hair. It’s warm in their room, the bedside lamp the only light on, bedcovers pulled back, and Genji sitting on the bed in the soft light, wearing Jesse’s boxers and a t-shirt. There are two steaming mugs of cocoa on the bedside table, and despite how clearly exhausted he is, Genji notes the smile Jesse tries to stifle.

 

 He sits beside him, the metal of his prosthetic arm catching the lamplight, bed dipping with his weight and tipping Genji slightly into him. Genji’s staring again, and Jesse raises an eyebrow at him, letting his shoulders sag, his back hunch.

 

 “Just...happy,” Genji says softly, and it’s loaded with so much meaning, so much love, that Jesse shuts his eyes, and smiles to himself, afraid if he keeps them open much longer he’ll tear up. “Happy you’re home.”

 

“Me too,” he says, barely speaking, too tired to raise his voice to a normal volume.

 

 Genji knocks his shoulder into Jesse’s gently, carefully takes his metal hand in both of his, an embrace of flesh and not. His fingers trail up to his bicep, where they linger, skirting around the join between Jesse’s shoulder and his prosthetic. They hover, until Jesse looks at him.

 

 “May I?”

 

 It takes a moment, but Jesse nods, raking his wet hair back from his face with his free hand. He lets his head hang again, and feels the soft click, the light pressure of his arm being released from its anchor.

 

 He breathes.

 

 Genji is achingly careful, always has been, sets Jesse’s arm on the dresser with the same reverence as if it were made of glass, watches the muscles flex in Jesse’s shoulder as it struggles to recognise the loss, his back carrying the strain, shoulder blades pulled tight.

 

 It still bothers him. So many years after the fact, Jesse still rarely goes without his arm, still clumsy without it. The loss of it is tightly tangled, barbed, despite the amount it has lessened in their retirement, despite the distance they have put between when it happened and their life now. Genji recognises a wound that was left to fester, to scar. Left without treatment, and never truly having been allowed to heal properly, he is intimately familiar with the prospect that perhaps it never will.

 

 Jesse doesn’t look at the space where a moment before he had fingers, a wrist, an elbow. The exhaustion is much more apparent now, the lines seeming deeper around his mouth, his eyes. Just as handsome as he was at 25. A little more worn. They both are, but happiness sits well in them both, Genji thinks. Even with the greying hair.

 

 “Lie down,” he says, soft still, careful of the fragility the ritual always brings. Jesse isn’t breakable, but doesn’t look like he has a lot of strength left.

 

 He does as asked though, and visibly melts into the pillow on his side of their bed, eyelashes fluttering as he finally lets something else take his weight for him, bare chest falling with his deep sigh. Clean sheets, a soft mattress, Genji by his side. Nothing could be better.

 

 Genji shifts closer, fishing a small tube of lotion from the bedside drawer. He takes Jesse’s towel from him, folds it, and carefully lifts Jesse’s head to set it on the pillow beneath his still damp hair. Jesse sighs again as he lets his head fall back, opening his eyes to look up at Genji as he straddles Jesse’s chest.

 

 His weight is barely noticeable, but he still sits as lightly as he can on Jesse’s soft belly, the hair there tickling the insides of his thighs where the boxers are loose and much too big for him, the few inches of skin he has before his own prosthetic limbs attach. “Tell me if you need to stop,” Genji says, and Jesse only nods in answer.

 

 It’s enough, and Genji squeezes lotion into his flesh palm, light and only slightly scented, sweet and citrus, rubs it between his hands to lessen the temperature shock. Eyes closing again, Jesse holds his breath, brow creasing when Genji’s hands touch the stump of his arm.

 

 The skin is clammy, warm, but clearly suffering from a week without care. Genji is as gentle as possible, and Jesse lets out a voiced sigh as he starts smoothing the lotion over the stump, the remnants of Jesse’s bicep, and up over his shoulder. A pink line marks where the edge of the prosthetic meets and rubs Jesse’s skin, higher than the port itself, where the nerves join and become metal, and Genji can’t help but frown. Jesse knows better than to neglect his arm, yet he still does.

 

 Jesse groans again, barely audible, Genji adding another handful of lotion and pressing his fingers a little more firmly into the skin. He palms the misshapen limb, rubs circles into the scar tissue above the circular port at the base. It’s different under his fingers there, denser, spreading towards Jesse’s shoulder where the muscles feel normal again, tense, but not damaged.

 

 Tan skin flushes as Genji works, massaging in gentle circles, pressing tighter spots with the pads of his thumbs, one flesh and one synthetic. He works his way up Jesse’s stump, the swell of his muscle, over the curve of his shoulder, the juncture between shoulder and neck.

 

 Another soft moan, and if it wasn’t for the noise, Genji might think Jesse was asleep, free arm bent over his shut eyes, face hovering between taut and slack, depending on where Genji’s fingers press. The tension seems to melt from him with every inch Genji touches, easing the stress from his tired muscles, and as the minutes stretch on Jesse sinks into a place between awake and dozing, Genji’s weight acting as a comfort blanket as he shifts and leans on his stomach. Barely registers Genji’s murmured voice, telling him to sleep if he wants to.

 

 The steam stops rising from the mugs of cocoa. Jesse sinks. And Genji is nothing if not thorough. Only when he’s satisfied, he slips one hand behind Jesse’s shoulder, massaging his shoulder blade. His skin is still soft from the shower, and Genji can smell his shampoo as he leans closer, notes the customary kink in Jesse’s hair as it air dries, rich deep brown flecked with threads of silver against the white towel.

 

 Beneath him, Jesse shifts his weight slightly to the side to expose the back of his shoulder, slow and lumbering, like a great bear. He sighs again at a particular knot, encouraged to loosen under Genji’s insistent thumb, drawing patterns over the constellation of freckles on Jesse’s back, the occasional blemish and scar. A grunt and Jesse lets his arm fall back to his side, opening his eyes enough to watch Genji’s face. Concentrating, but serene. As ever.

 

 “You’re spoilin’ me,” he says, voice deep, weary, manages a slow half-smile at the _look_ he gets in return. _I know_.

 

 His eyes close again, slightly out-of-sync with each other, as if moments away from falling asleep, only opening when Genji’s hands disappear, and his weight is fully on his chest, a nose nuzzling at his unshaven cheek.

 

 “Better?”

 

“Mhm.” Jesse leans into the touch, nosing at Genji’s hair, bringing his right hand up to Genji’s waist to slip it beneath his t-shirt, resting in the small of his back. Eyes still shut, he presses a kiss to the first piece of skin he can find while blind, Genji’s forehead, and delights in the tiny laugh he hears in return. Genji shifts, helps him, and then Jesse can feel lips against his, gentle, barely moving. He sighs, respite after a week’s worth of hard work, and splays his hand on Genji’s back, covering the join between implant and flesh, perfectly fitted.

 

 “Cocoa’s probably cold,” Genji says absently, lips brushing against Jesse’s cheek, grazing feather kisses over his cheekbone, down his jaw, his chin, trying to show a little of the relief he feels, the quiet breathless solace he finds in Jesse’s mere presence. He smells considerably less like the sea, though his beard is still overgrown, prickly even on Genji’s less sensitive prosthetic lip. None of it matters. He’s here.

 

 Jesse hums, too tired to really find a proper answer to that amidst the fog in his head. Genji simply kisses him once more, and then leans over to switch the bedside lamp off. He’ll tidy up later. Now, Jesse’s long overdue for a good sleep.

 

 Shifting his weight, Genji slots himself on Jesse’s right side, cradled in the crook of his arm, head on his shoulder, leg tangled between Jesse’s. He pulls the covers up from where Jesse had buried his feet beneath them, nuzzling at the chest hair that tickles his cheek. Familiar. His hand rests on the left side of Jesse’s chest, and it’s like he’s the one coming home. This is where he belongs.

 

 Jesse’s thumb rubs absent patterns on Genji’s hip, and silence stretches over them, Jesse’s breathing slowing. Genji can feel the rise and fall of his chest, the beating of his heart. It lulls him too, intimately soothing.

 

 “Thank you,” Jesse manages, after what could have been hours, quiet but clear, voice so low Genji can feel it rumble beneath his breast. “Still lookin’ after me.”

 

 Genji smiles into Jesse’s skin. “Always,” he says, just as quiet. “Until your beard reaches your toes.”

 

 There’s a huff of laughter, Jesse holding him a little closer, not wanting to let him go again, even for a moment. Genji presses a weak kiss to Jesse’s chest. “As long as we’re together.”

 

 Jesse doesn’t answer for a moment, and Genji soon forgets he’d said anything at all, teetering on the edge of sleep, more comfortable than he has been in a week. Then, barely audible, “Always,” Jesse says, and Genji falls asleep with Jesse’s heart beating beneath his hand.

 

**Author's Note:**

> [title](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oho-q53uiv4) and [inspiration](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8a4iiOnzsc)


End file.
